


The Long Road to Nowhere

by Yeah_JSmith



Series: Ruff Stuff [13]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: AU, Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Pie Was Harmed in the Making of This Story, protective friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 05:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16341098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_JSmith/pseuds/Yeah_JSmith
Summary: When Gideon Grey leaves Bunnyburrow after hisaltercationwith Judy Hopps, a concerned friend gives him a lift.





	The Long Road to Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mersharr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mersharr/gifts).



> I regret nothing, but Gideon is ridiculously hard. Also, this sort of explains the raspberry pie event that Judy mentions to Nate in _Exhibit A,_ for all zero of you who were wondering about it.

Thursday was garbage day, so it was only fitting that Gideon was packed and ready to go on a Thursday. Least, that was how everybody would see it. He had no illusions about his standing. Not only was he a fox, but he was also the dumbshit who had carved up Judy Hopps’ face. Nobody could prove it, and she certainly wasn’t talking—wouldn’t even acknowledge the grooves in her cheek, or called them a failed attempt at the scar tattoos bunnies used to do—but who else would do it? She wasn’t popular, nor was she the kind of waifish pretty that made mammals want to protect her. She was almost always K on the FMK list and her personality was too abrasive to allow her to disappear. But someone had gone and hurt her, spooked her enough to keep her nose a-twitching and her ears on high alert, and when you lived in Bunnyburrow, it was us-versus-them. Whether you were _us_ or _them_ depended on your behavior.

Gideon was _them_ now. He wasn’t dumb enough to pretend otherwise, nor was he interested in doing so. He could still feel her skin ripping beneath his claws, see the terror in her eyes as he’d held her down, and it was…

Playing the big bad fox hadn’t been fun at all. He figured he would probably keep having bad dreams about it. He couldn’t _stand_ Judy Hopps, with her chirpy voice and her perfect grades and her stupid ambition and her complete inability to conform, but he hoped that at least she didn’t have bad dreams about him. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d just wanted to scare her a little, put her in her place. And in that moment, he had seen his own history play out, felt Mama’s claws in his shoulder, heard her call him good-for-nothing, shit-for-brains, _just like your daddy._

Well, at least his daddy had been smart enough to get out. Now, Gideon was headed to Podunk to live with the father who’d deserted him, because anything was better than here.

He heard the weak honk from outside and slipped out of the trailer, careful not to wake Mama just yet. She was long and thin, always grouchy from giving him her food and working long hours stocking shelves at the local market...and always resentful of him for taking her life away. Saddled with a kit she didn’t want at fifteen, abandoned by the boyfriend who didn’t even have to pay child support. If she woke, she’d pop him in the mouth for trying to leave, even though she’d made it clear she didn’t want him. Well, screw her. With a sharp grin, he slammed the door behind him as hard as he could, relishing the sound of his mother’s panic at the noise. It was only a fraction of what she’d put him through. With any luck, he’d never see her again anyway. He threw his duffel bag into the backseat through the window, pulled himself up and into the truck, and buckled himself in, heedless of the door of the trailer opening. He was free. She could shout till her eyes turned red from all the burst vessels, but he was free.

“Hi, Gideon,” said Sharla Woolston with a pleasant smile, stepping on the gas. It had been real nice of her to volunteer her truck for a ride out of town. “Hope ya didn’t forget anythin’ cos I ain’t turnin’ back.”

* * *

Podunk was three hours south of Bunnyburrow, a much more metropolitan area with real shops and roads that weren’t made out of dirt. Practically a city, even though lots of real city folks used it as shortpaw for “middle of nowhere.” Gideon had Michael Reeder’s address on a slip of paper in his pocket, and every once in a while, he fingered it to make sure it was still there. Such an innocuous little thing, an address, practically irrelevant in a place like Bunnyburrow where everyone was always in and out of each other’s houses anyway. But this and a phone number were all he had to connect him to his father.

After the cassette ended—it was something grating, a female singing in some foreign language—Sharla turned the volume knob until it clicked off. She’d been quiet, hardly even singing along to the music, and not looking at him, either. She had always been the nicest mammal he knew, taking in the weirdos and loners and mothering them half to death, so it wasn’t...a _surprise,_ exactly, that she’d volunteered to drive him, even if she _was_ Judy’s best friend. It was just so different. After Gideon had carved up Judy’s cheek, Travis had laughed and offered to have someone go and finish the job, whatever that meant. Hopefully not murder. Travis was too much of a coward to do much more than hide behind his bigger friends, but he was the kind of wily, manipulative coward who could get you to do just about anything just with his words. Gideon didn’t want that on his conscience.

“I never realized how long this road is,” he said, hoping to distract himself from dark thoughts. This was supposed to be a chance to start over.

“It sure is,” Sharla agreed with a nod. “Nothin’ out here for miles an’ miles. I can only imagine what stuff’s gone on. Prob’ly lotsa bodies buried out that-a-way.”

Although her tone was pleasant enough, Gideon suppressed a shiver. She was always so unassuming that it was hardly noticeable, but suddenly, he was aware of how much bigger she was. He forced a laugh. “Ha, I reckon most folks is too scared ta drag bodies out this far, less’n they get caught.”

“Not everbody’s a fraidy-fox like you. _Some_ folks are willin’ to do what needs to be done. You’re lucky my truck runs so well. Those claws might be a real threat to a rabbit, but against me? Or somethin’ bigger’n me? Well, you’re as defenseless as a little garter snake, ain’t ya?”

“Ah…”

“But who’d have it out for ya,” she asked, tossing him a grin before looking back to the road. For a flat-tooth, she could look right menacing. “Can’t imagine _you’ve_ done anythin’ bad enough to warrant that sorta treatment. You’d never do anythin’ stupid like takin’ those razors on your fingers to some random sheep’s best friend. Ain’t that right?”

His stomach plummeted. The breeze, which had felt nice whistling through his fur, now made him feel cold. The sun was hot, the scenery was over-saturated...dimly, he knew it was fear. He knew what fear felt like. But it was so strange to be afraid of prey, to be trapped with someone he couldn’t fight. He glanced sideways at Sharla, who was still smiling. “Look, Sharla-”

“No, _you_ look, Gideon Grey,” she said, and he shut the hell up. He may not have been smart, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. Her smile dried up, and for the first time in a long time, he saw her as the threat she was. Most folks assumed that Judy was the reason the weirdos flocked to that little group of freaks, but Sharla Woolston was a force to be reckoned with. Far from the fearful, stuttering lamb she once had been, Sharla _was_ the type to bury a body, if she thought the numbers added up. He was going to die, wasn’t he?

...Did he even really care? What about life had ever proved itself to be worth living? Was Podunk really the salvation he was hoping for? Would his father even _take_ him?

“You know what sheep say when we’re _real_ annoyed,” she asked, only just loud enough to be heard over the wind whistling through the windows.

“No,” he replied, hoping he didn’t sound aggressive.

“Mutton chops.” The smile was back. How had he not noticed that it wasn’t a friendly smile? “It’s a funny joke, Gideon. We swear by the cooked flesh of our own elders. Makes us laugh. Imagine how much I’d laugh at an enemy, cookin’ in the sun on the side of a long road to nowhere. You ain’t my enemy, right?”

“No,” he said again. His heart was pounding, his head was shrieking at him, he wanted to _run_ but she was going too fast for him to jump out of the truck—he was going to die—

“My girl Judy,” she told him, “doesn’t wanna tell anybody what you did. ‘S like if she doesn’t say it out loud, it never happened. I don’t get it, but I respect her enough to let her make her own choices. I remember when we were all small, Josh Longfoot kept pullin’ Judy’s ears an’ stealin’ my lunch money, so you two cooked up a plan to get back at ‘im. She put a slug in his lunchbox an’ you made ‘im eat it. What happened to _our friend?_ Why’d you up an’ run off with Travis? How did my dashing hero grow up to be such a spineless bully that you hadta wait to get Judy alone? _How could you?”_

He remembered that. Once upon a time, it had just been the six of them. Judy and Rose Hopps, Sharla Woolston, Bobby Catmull, Emma Loplin, and Gideon himself, six kits against everybody else. At seven, Gideon and Rose had promised to get married the fox way so that they could have more cake than just the birthday kind, and then...what? Rose had died, being one of the few rabbits who didn’t respond at all to the vaccine for calicivirus, and in retrospect a raspberry pie had been a terrible _I’m-sorry-your-littermate-is-dead_ present, and Judy had gotten into trouble for hitting their teacher when she’d thrown it at the wall, and he’d been mad that she’d wasted seven whole dollars when _Rose_ wouldn’t have, and they’d never spoken civilly again. Gideon had taken up with Travis, Judy had gotten real weird, and…

“I’m a jerk,” he confessed, because it was true, and anyway, he _was_ afraid that an unsatisfactory answer would see him dead in a hole. “Judy was always better’n me. Smarter, happier, nicer, stronger...everthing about her just pisses me off. She’s still the same girl who’ll force-feed you a slug, only she’s too _cute_ for it ta be a problem. She’s gonna get herself killed with that stupid dream a hers. An’ you know what? She’ll deserve it. She’s a dumb bunny, an’ she’ll always be a dumb bunny, an’ I don’t even care if you clock me on the head an’ dump me somewhere, I ain’t takin’ it back. It’ll still be true if I’m dead or alive.”

There were too many mile markers to count. The stretch of road felt like a prison instead of a path to freedom.

“I ain’t gonna kill you,” Sharla said after a long, _long_ silence. Her tone was hard and cold. “Jude wouldn’t like it.”

The fact that it was Judy Hopps’ forgiving nature keeping him alive was not lost on him. Uncomfortable and embarrassed, he replied, “No, I reckon she wouldn’t.”

“In fact, if you marched up to her front door and apologized for being such a piece of shit, she’d probably give you a hug.”

He didn’t know about that. The Judy he’d been friends with could hold a grudge like nobody’s business. But Sharla would know better than he would. “Maybe so.”

“That’s why I said I’d drive you out to Podunk,” she concluded, gesturing at a mile marker. There really was nothing out there at all. “You need to understand that actions have consequences. That ain’t a threat, Gideon, it’s a fact.”

“Yeah, I got it,” he snipped, his temper getting the better of him once again. “What do you want from me anyhow? The cuts’ll go away, an’ it’s not like I meant to hurt her that bad. What’s ya so-called _consequence_ for makin’ a dumb mistake?”

Sharla whipped the truck into the shoulder and Gideon let out an embarrassing yelp. As the truck screeched to a stop, he couldn’t help but think about all the ways she probably _could_ kill him, even if she’d said she wouldn’t. Hoof to the face? Messy, but effective. Tie him up and run over him? Energetically expensive, but probably more fun. Drag him—punch him in the gut until he bled out internally—snap his neck—

“Get out, I wanna show you something,” she ordered.

Wordlessly, he unbuckled his seatbelt and slid out the passenger door. Sharla wasn’t usually so volatile, which meant she was _furious,_ but he didn’t understand why she was _this_ angry. What he’d done was terrible, but it was better than getting beaten up in the locker room. The actual clawing hadn’t even been planned, he’d just gotten so mad looking at her stupid smile, listening to her try to apologize for humiliating him in front of everybody…

“There’s a little town about ten miles that-a-way,” she told him, shouting a little over the rattle of the engine. He tried to look at her, but he was still a little too short to peer into the window, and when he reached for the door handle, it was locked. “They have a payphone.”

“Sharla, this ain’t _funny-”_

"Does it sound like I'm laughing?" His duffel bag came flying out the window. He scrambled to catch it, and while he did so, she said coldly, “It ain’t about the scratches. She thought you were going to kill her or rape her, you stupid prick.”

He froze. “No, I would never…”

“Everybody says they would never, but if that were so, it would never happen. I want you to remember _that_ every step you take. I want you to think about how it feels for the next ten miles. I want you to think about it if someone pulls over an’ asks you if you want a ride. I want you to feel it in your bones while you wait a couple of hours for your daddy to pick you up at Wellspring. _If_ he does. I want you to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. I know your name. I know your daddy’s address. And I got internet. I’m gonna keep an eye on you, Gideon Grey. If I ever hear of you scarin’ the piss outta somebody else…”

He waited for the end of that sentence, but it never came. She just gunned it, shot off toward Wellspring, and as he watched her truck disappear into the distance, he sat down heavily on the side of the road. He had planned on making a fresh start anyway, but now...now, he had extra incentive. He pitied the next fool who laid a paw on Judy Hopps. On second thought...no. No, he didn’t. Actions, after all, had consequences.

Fifteen minutes and a resolution later, Gideon got up, dusted himself off, and began walking.


End file.
